


Starlight

by doqbop



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Angst, Astronomy, Castiel (Supernatural)'s Birthday, Chuck Shurley is Castiel's Parent, Dean Winchester's Birthday, Don't copy to another site, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm Sorry, Kid Castiel (Supernatural), Kid Castiel/Kid Dean Winchester, Kid Dean Winchester, M/M, Wishes, but i don't regret a single second of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 16:28:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20245858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doqbop/pseuds/doqbop
Summary: Dean Winchester was a joyful, outgoing, affectionate child, whose itty-bitty button nose and smothered-in-freckles’s face conquered everyone’s hearts. He was only seven years old, but he made up for his youthfulness with the care he took in being Sam Winchester’s big brother.The boy exuded energy and boyish charm from every fiber of his being. It was no surprise, then, his popularity amongst other kids at school, but despite this, if you asked anybody in town who was Dean Winchester’s best friend, everybody and their dog would reply with the same name –“Castiel.”





	Starlight

**Author's Note:**

> This work was inspired by: Satellite – Guster, Week #4 - Fabrizio Paterlini, and Van Gogh’s Starry Night.  
I highly recommend listening to Fabrizio Paterlini's song especially, as I think it captures the general vibe of this story.
> 
> That being said, I hope you'll have a good read, and that you'll enjoy it as much as I did while writing it.

_Shining like a work of art _  
_Hanging on a wall of stars _  
_Are you what I think you are? _

Dean Winchester was a joyful, outgoing, affectionate child, whose itty-bitty button nose and smothered-in-freckles’s face conquered everyone’s hearts. He was only seven years old, but he made up for his youthfulness with the care he took in being Sam Winchester’s big brother.  
  
The boy exuded energy and boyish charm from every fiber of his being. It was no surprise, then, his popularity amongst other kids at school, but despite this, if you asked anybody in town who was Dean Winchester’s best friend, everybody and their dog would reply with the same name – “Castiel”.  
  
The two were inseparable. And it was almost surprising, considering how different they were. He was, in fact, almost his exact opposite – quiet, shy and soft spoken, yet defiant and sometimes brutally honest.  
  
How the two had managed to find each other, nobody ever understood, but they had gravitated towards one another nonetheless. The teachers looking over them in kindergarten had said that it had been almost instantaneous. One day they were strangers, Castiel on a corner reading a book, Dean on the other playing with miniature army soldiers and bright pink markers - the day after they were playing together like they had known each other for millennia.  
  
In the eyes of someone who didn’t know them personally, this would’ve seemed completely normal. Befriending one another in a matter of mere moments, without needing a definite reason other than a ‘let’s play together’, was what kids did, after all – but it wasn’t the case for Dean and Castiel in particular. Because despite Dean’s popularity, the boy had never really actively sought the other children’s company, and Castiel was very much the same on that note. Though his apparent loneliness was more likely due to the fact that he was so peculiar in mannerisms and personality, so much so that he had preferred to stay by the sidelines and observe rather than make use of his self-described ‘lacking social skills’ ever since the first week of kindergarten.  
  
The matter of fact was, though, that despite being so intrinsically different, they were unmistakably connected on such a profound level that it was almost like they had known each other in a past life. They completed each other in such a way that it was obvious that nothing would ever separate them.  
  
If Dean covered himself in mud, touching the Earth like she was his mother, climbing trees like he was made for it - Castiel longed for the night sky, that deep, scintillating blue of the universe that surrounded everything, and yet always seemed so impossibly out of reach.  
  
Somehow, they had met in the middle, where the air touched the ground, and the ground touched the air.  
  
  
  
  
Castiel had told Mary once that he and Dean were like binary stars on an endless orbit around each other, destined to fuse into a single entity, brighter than the two of them combined.  
And Mary figured that that was exactly what they were.  
  


  
Castiel’s love for the universe was perhaps the most obvious thing about his character, second only to the adoration he had for his own bee plushie and, needless to say, Dean. If the thing wasn’t made apparent by the multitude of astronomy-themed books he always carried around with him, then his own words would've made it obvious.  
  
All kids had a fixation at some point of their lives – Castiel’s just happened to be the universe. The infinite expansion of space, the variety and multitude of stars, all of it made his head spin and his lips turn upwards. Dean understood his fascination for the stars, as he himself loved collecting miniature cars, but didn’t know much about the sky aside from the occasional thing Miss Bradbury told them at school. That, however, changed as soon as Castiel acknowledged that Dean was listening to him, and listening intently.  
  
  
Dean loved hearing Castiel talk. He talked about those things like he was describing the most delicious slice of pie he had ever tasted. His big blue eyes shined when he talked about how many more stars he’d discover, as soon as he’d become an astronaut.  
  
He talked about pulsars, and supernovas, and how black holes can weigh so much and yet be as large as a spoon, and then he’d look at him with the same expression of adoration and wonder, almost as if amazed that Dean was there, listening, asking questions. Being his friend.  
  
And then Dean would talk to him about cartoons, astonished by the fact that Cas knew so little, and then he’d teach him how to make the best smores _ever_, and all those survival skills they _absolutely_ needed if they ever got stuck in the jungle.  
  
Dean didn’t really care if the jungle was very far away from where they lived – quicksand was very real and very dangerous and, if the situation ever arose, Cas had to know how to survive those jiggly pond-like bastards. He’d be beside him, obviously, but he didn’t want to risk Castiel drowning because he hadn’t told him the basics. “Better be safe than sorry”, he always reminded Castiel, who vigorously nodded, taking in all the information like Dean was his captain and he was his own personal soldier.  
  
  
  
  
  
Castiel’s bedroom was, quite obviously, galaxy-themed. The walls were painted a deep shade of blue and filled with fluorescent star-shaped stickers, some of them worn down and starting to peel off, but quickly fixed with some scotch tape.  
  
Dean loved it. It had quickly become one of their favourite places to hang out to, especially at night, since the room’s biggest window faced the forest directly, and the view of the sky was spectacular.  
It was a fortune that their houses weren’t very far from each other, and that Mary and Cas’s dad let them have sleepovers whenever they asked.  
  
The best type of sleepovers, though, were probably the ones they had in the summer. Then, they’d put up a makeshift tent made of blankets using the garden table, pick up a bunch of snacks from the kitchen without being seen by Mary – who stood in the dining room without making herself known, peeking at the duo with fondness- and they’d lay down, stargazing.  
  
  
  
“Maybe I have more freckles than there are stars in the sky!” exclaims Dean all of the sudden, startling Cas from his reverie.  
  
He looks at him with the seriousness he reserves for things that he deems absolutely impossible. Like a mouse that can talk, for example.  
  
“That’s not possible, Dean.“  
  
“Aw, c’mon! You can’t know that! You haven’t counted all the stars, have you?”  
  
Castiel contemplates his statement for a moment, partially nodding.  
  
“You’re right. But I know that you have about 130 freckles on your face, and this book,” Cas says, holding it up, “says that there are much more than that. But I may have missed some of your freckles, so you could be right.”  
  
He doesn’t say that the possibility of him being right is none, since there are billions and billions of stars, because it doesn’t really matter to him, not since Dean looks so happy at that notion.  
  
  
  
In that moment, it's just the two of them, and the ephemeral life of the shooting stars that they capture with their amazed eyes, as they blaze through the sky and vanish, all in the matter of a moment.  
  
  
“Mom says that shooting stars are fallen angels,” murmurs Dean in wonder, at the sight of the second shooting star.  
  
Castiel doesn’t object.  
  
“They’re space dust that goes really really fast and reaches the atmosphere and burns up. You know the meteor that killed all the dinosaurs? They’re that, but really really little,” he replies with contentment, turning his face towards Dean’s to see his reaction at the explanation.  
  
As expected, Dean looks at him, eyes wide open and an expression of shock written allover his face.  
  
“The thing that killed all the dinosaurs?! That bastard!” he exclaims, making Cas giggle and Dean smile in return.  
  
They both return their faces to the sky again, and it’s in that moment that Dean realizes something.  
  
“What is your wish?” he asks Cas, looking at him again.  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“Everytime you see a shooting star, you gotta make a wish. So what is your wish?”  
  
“_Oh_. I...”  
  
Dean sees Cas biting his bottom lip in nervousness, but he doesn’t really know how to interpret that, so he just patiently waits for his response. He thinks Castiel is blushing a little, but he’s not really sure, since there’s not much light out there.  
  
After what feels like an eternity, Cas averts his gaze, scratching his forearm lightly, as if he’s thinking of how to say what he wants to say.  
  
“Promise me you won’t laugh?” he whispers softly, and Dean has no idea what Cas’s wish is, but it’s gotta be a pretty big one, he figures.  
  
“I pinky promise I won’t laugh,” he promises with all seriousness. Now, he thinks, it’s a promise, and Dean Winchester never breaks promises. He just hopes that Castiel isn’t going to tell him that he wishes to become a unicorn or something like that, cause then it’s gonna be hard not to laugh. Not that there is anything wrong with wanting to become a unicorn, but...  
  
At that Castiel takes a huge inhale, as if he’s trying to calm himself. He turns to face him, determined, not breaking eye contact as if he’s about to say the most important thing he has ever said in his life.  
  
“That we’ll be together forever,” he professes, looking away as soon as he’s said it.  
“If...if you want to, of course,” he continues, his tone more hesitant, now, as if he’s afraid that Dean’s going to tell him no.  
  
Which is stupid, of course. And Dean’s about to tell him just that.  
  
“You don’t have to wish for that. We’ll always be together, silly!” he exclaims with a bright smile, hoping that Cas’ll understand that he will never leave his side.  
Unless he wants to, of course.  
  
At that it’s Cas’s turn to be shocked and speechless. It takes him a minute or so of complete silence to shake his face out of the spell he had fallen under, and even then it seems to take Castiel more than normal to reply to him.  
  
Which is strange, and Dean doesn’t really know why Cas is that shocked by what he just said, but he doesn’t question it. His best friend in the whole world – no, scratch that, in the whole universe – just admitted to wishing that he never wants to leave his side, and if that’s not the best thing in the world, he doesn’t know what is.  
  
  
  
  
It’s finally March the 8th, year 1986.  
  
It’s a ‘finally’ for them both, but for Castiel especially, who has been wishing for this moment to arrive all his life. Which comprises only nine years so far, but still.  
  
“Halley's Comet returns to the earth every 75 years. The next time we’ll see it, it will be 2061!” Cas exclaims excitedly, jumping on his feet with happiness while he looks out of the window to observe the comet.  
  
“Do you think I’ll be a cowboy by then?” Dean says with a smirk in his voice.  
  
“Yes!” Cas replies almost automatically, before stopping dead on his tracks and facing him.  
  
“I mean, you already are,” he continues, cautiously. At that Dean jokingly points a finger at him, laughing like a madman, exclaiming “Hah! Almost gotcha! Hell yes I am!”  
  
They return to watching the comet, and as much as the silence is soothing and enough when it comes to him and Cas, he wants to hear him talk, and so he asks, “What’s it made of?”  
  
“You already know it! Dean, I’ve been telling you what it is all week!” Cas exclaims, almost exasperated, but Dean only giggles knowingly.  
  
“Yes, I know it! But I want to hear you say it again,” he admits, and Cas at that point has no reason to deny him.  
  
“A comet is a thing made of ice and dust. The tail you see forms when it comes near the sun. Since it’s made of ice, it kinda evaporates and that’s why it has a trail.”  
  
“That dust is stardust, right?”  
  
At that Castiel stops for a second, contemplating.  
  
“Well...technically, everything is made of stardust,” he says.  
  
“Even me?”  
  
Dean looks at him expectantly, genuinely not knowing the answer. Cas smiles at him fondly, looking briefly at the floor, while he murmurs.  
  
“_Especially_ you.”  
  
  
  
  
It’s finally January 4th, year 1987.  
This time it’s Dean’s turn of ‘finally’, since he’s been preparing for this moment for months.  
  
It’s Castiel’s 10th birthday.  
  
He’s a pretty big kid now. And Dean’s going to age another year too, just twenty days later. But he’s almost more excited for this moment than for his own birthday.  
He really really really wants to give Cas his present.  
  
It’s not much, but it’s a big deal for him. He had been searching all the fairs of the town with his mom to find this thing.  
  
When he gives the little pastel blue box to him, decorated with a big sunflower-yellow ribbon and a sticker with Saturn on it, his heart is doing odd things.  
  
He thinks Cas is saying something to him, but he doesn’t really understand what he’s saying, too entranced in the anxiety of hoping that Cas will like what he’s given to him.  
  
Which is a meteorite. Shaped kinda like a heart, but that’s absolutely coincidental.  
  
One hundred percent coincidental.  
  
“It’s a ... a chodr...condrit...” he tries to say, struggling to find the right word. He knew he had to practice more on how to say the damn thing.  
  
“Chondrite.”  
  
Cas says it with such an odd tone that Dean doesn’t understand if he’s upset or happy with it. It’s in that moment that he realizes that he had looked at the floor the whole time.  
  
He raises his eyes to see Castiel turning from speechless and amazed to absolutely ecstatic in matter of moments.  
  
“DEAN!” he exclaims then, hugging him so tightly that he fears he’s going to suffocate him. Not that he would mind, because, right now? He’s the happiest boy in the universe, thank you very much.  
  
“So...you like it?”  
  
“I love it,” he whispers.  
  
  
  
  
24th January 1987  
  
Cas gives Dean a daisy.  
He doesn’t know why he does it, not exactly. But he has heard that they’re a symbol of loyal love, and he thinks it fits. He doesn’t know if he hopes if Dean will understand what he’s trying to say to him or not.  
  
Obviously, though, that’s not the present. The present is, well...he doesn’t know if Dean will like it.  
  
The thing is, Dean likes many things. But he’s very, very picky about what he likes. Take food, for example. He _hates_ veggies. Which is understandable if he’s been confronted with the infamous Brussels sprouts, but not if he’s had carrots and artichokes and zucchinis, because those are _delicious_.  
  
Dean also likes miniature cars, but he doesn’t like the colourful ones nor the boxy or bubbly ones.  
  
So that left him with very few options, none of which satisfied him completely.  
  
Apart from one thing.  
  
Dean is odd for one reason and one reason only. He likes pink. But it’s not a _bad_-odd thing to Castiel. It’s actually quite endearing, and he’d say so if he just knew the word.  
  
Thing is, a year ago Dean had no problem using pink markers and picking up pink things. But it kinda degenerated from then on. Kids at school had started saying that pink was for girls, and Dean had abruptly stopped liking pink.  
  
Well. That’s what he had said to him, at least.  
  
The truth is, Cas doesn’t care if Dean likes pink. And he wants him to understand that he doesn’t have to lie to him so that Cas won’t judge him for liking pink. He doesn’t care if it’s a girl colour. Because it’s just a colour as any other.  
  
  
But obviously, he couldn’t gift him the colour pink. So that was...inconvenient, to say the least.  
  
And that’s why he had resorted to gifting him the big, fluffy, pink teddy bear that Dean was holding right in that moment.  
  
“You...don’t care if I like pink?” Dean whispered, partially hiding his face behind the enormous plushie.  
  
“Nope,” he replied, lips smacking with effort, almost to emphasize his reply, “and you shouldn’t care either. It’s just a colour and those kids are stupid.”  
  
At that Dean smiles, and Cas concludes that it was worth it just to see him smile to him in that way.  
  
  
  
They party their own way, and end the day with a hug.  
  
Cas’s going on holidays with his parents for a couple of days, but with them being together almost 24/7, those few days feel like a lifetime.  
  
It doesn’t really matter in the end, though. They’ll always find the way back to each other. That’s what he had overheard mom say to dad one evening, when they thought he was sleeping.  
  
And he knows that’s true. And he’s pretty sure that Cas knows it, too.  
  
“See you next Thursday!” Cas says to him, waving from the passenger seat of his dad’s turquoise, orange-flowers-stickered van.  
  
As Dean looks at him, smiling and waving back, he feels something changing, but he doesn’t understand what, exactly.  
  
He doesn’t take his eyes off the van until it disappears in the horizon, and Castiel becomes one with the sunset’s bright red rays.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Dean won’t cry. He knows that Cas wouldn’t want him to. When he is sad, Cas is sad too, and he doesn’t want Cas to be sad, so he’s not gonna cry.  
  
Cas’s dad is downstairs. He is inside Cas’s room.  
  
But Cas is not there.  
  
  
  
  
There are a lot of people in Cas’s house. He thinks he can hear someone crying, or maybe yelling. He’s not really sure, because the world is kind of strange right now. It feels like he’s in a soapy bubble that mutes all the sounds and colours – even the bright blue walls of Cas’s bedroom look kinda grey, now.  
  
Had the world always been this strange, when Cas was not there?  
  
He doesn’t really know.  
  
  
  
His throat hurts. He thinks he knows the reason, but he doesn’t want to admit it to himself.  
  
He holds his pink teddy bear.  
  
  
But Cas is not there.  
  
  
  
  
  
He stays in Cas’s room until the sun has gone down.  
  
The stars are exceptionally bright that night. But they look like they’re fusing together underneath Dean’s eyelashes.  
  
Or maybe he’s just cried without realizing it.  
  
  
  
  
He wipes away his tears and throws the teddy bear away in anger.  
  
Cas was supposed to come back.  
  
  
  
  
He wanted- no, he _needed_ him to come back.  
  
  
But Cas is not there.  
  
  
  
He sees the biggest shooting star he has ever seen in his life cross the sky. It blazes through the darkness in a brief instant, shimmering with all its might – going back into the night just a second after. Bright, beautiful, and yet so painfully fleeting.  
  
  
  
He makes a wish.  
  
  
  
  
He closes his eyes and wishes, he wishes so deeply that his heart hurts. He wishes like he’s never wished before.  
  
  
  
  
He opens his eyes, and for a moment he thinks that Cas is not there.  
  
But there’s something, undulating near the glass of the closed window. It’s a blue ball of light, something that he’d describe as a will-o'-the-wisp if he knew the term.  
  
He hurries to open the window, and a cold breeze goes through him.  
  
The little ball of light enters gracefully, its tendrils slowly growing and taking a humanoid form, until Dean sees him.  
  
  
He’s glowing blue, and transparent. He looks like he’s made of starlight, but it’s him.  
  
It’s Castiel.  
  
  
  
He wants to talk. He really wants to, but he can’t find the words.  
  
Cas looks like he’s going through the same thing, too.  
  
So instead he just hugs him.  
  
  
He’s cold. And he doesn’t exactly feel corporeal, but Dean doesn’t care.  
  
  
“Why did you have to go?” he whispers, through a badly contained sob. He didn’t want to cry. Especially not now that Castiel was there with him.  
  
“I didn’t want to,” Cas replies, and it’s heartbreaking to hear that he, too, is struggling not to.  
  
“I miss you,” he says, trembling, not letting go in fear that Cas will go away at any moment, “so much,” he adds, pushing his face towards Cas's shoulder, as if that will prevent it from being seen by Castiel's baby blues.  
  
“I miss you,” and Dean doesn’t know if he was the one saying it, or if it was Cas.  
  
  
  
  
  
The world makes more sense when Cas is there. The room's sticker-stars glow dimly, but they have nothing on Cas. He is truly made of starlight, Dean concludes.  
  
But even the stars vanish, eventually, at the first ray of sunlight.  
  
  
  
“Will you go when the morning comes?” Dean asks, then.  
  
Cas looks at him and he appears to be crying.

ean can’t bear the sight of it.  
  
Cas's bottom lip trembles, as he keeps looking at him, never averting his gaze, even through the shield of tears forming between his eyes and eyelids.  
  
“I have to,” he admits.  
  
  
  
“Can we watch the stars together?” Dean asks, palming away his tears and forcing up a smile.  
  
Castiel nods vigorously, and the tears on his cheeks fall down, but they disappear before reaching the floor.  
  
He, too, sniffs and tries to smile.  
  
“Of course, Dean.”  
  
  
  
They lay down on the floor and watch the sky turn.  
  
They stay in silence. Dean doesn't know if that silence is a welcome one or not, but he doesn't dare to change it.  
  
The world has been so silent since Cas went away.  
  


  
At one point, Dean slips away.  
  
When he opens his eyes, the sun is shining on his freckled cheeks, and he’s laying on the pavement.  
  
  
And he knows (in his heart) that Cas is there, somewhere.   
  
Passing, transient.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
_Like a shooting star._  


  
  


_Maybe you will always be _  
_Just a little out of reach _  
  
_You're my satellite _  
_You're riding with me tonight _  
_Passenger side, lighting the sky, _  
_Always the first star that I find _  
_You're my satellite _

**Author's Note:**

> If you’re wondering why I decided that the 4th of January would be Castiel’s birthday, it’s because I’m a nerd. Cassiel is the angel that governs Saturn, which is the planet that rules the sign of the Capricorn, which is in December and January, and since we’ve seen Cas the first time in season 4, episode 1...yeah, I’m a dork. I know, I know. What can I say, I love easter eggs.
> 
> That being said, I’m not a native english speaker and I don’t have a beta, so I apologize for any errors I made. Don’t be afraid to point them out! 
> 
> Kudos and comments are greatly appreciated!


End file.
